Debate the issues facing Seattle Public Schools, share your opinions, read the latest news. Organize and work for high quality public schools that educate all students to become passionate, lifelong learners.

Friday, July 11, 2014

U.S. School Districts and Funding

From the Center for American Progress, a fascinating (and sobering) look at districts across the country. The name of the study is Parallel Lives, Different Outcomes: A Twin Study of Academic Productivity in U.S. School Districts. (It's not light summer reading, to be sure.)

For this report, “twin districts” have very similar sizes and they have the following in common:

The proportion of students who are from low-income families

The proportion of students who have limited English proficiency or are English language learners

The proportion of students who receive instruction through individualized educational programs

Our twin districts, however, differ in terms of per-pupil spending and revenues.The goal of this paper was to study twin districts and use the data
culled to provide recommendations for how districts can best leverage
their school funding investments—in other words, achieve a bigger bang
for their educational buck.This paper accompanies a CAP report on a much larger set of U.S. school
districts, titled “Return on Educational Investment: 2014. A
District-by-District Evaluation of U.S. Educational Productivity.” For
that report, we compared almost 7,000 districts across the United States
in terms of their expenditures and levels of student achievement. This
shorter analysis builds off of that work and relies on data from 2009-10
school year. Based on our in-depth look at twin districts and our subsequent analysis of the data, we came away with the following findings:

When it comes to education, spending does not always equal results.

There are significant funding inequities between demographically similar districts.

From our research, a few things are clear. Perhaps most importantly,
it is plain that some districts can get more bang for their buck. We
also found numerous districts that had the same demographics and the
same spending levels, but one district achieved more than its twin in
terms of student outcomes. Furthermore, we also found twin districts
that had the same achievement, the same demographics, but one of those
districts spent less than the other for the same results. (The former
category was more common than the latter.)

Part of the issue is that districts with similar demographics perform
very similarly, regardless of how much they spent per student. More
importantly, though, is the fact that some districts spent at the same
level but had higher achievement rates for those dollars.

Consider, for example, two suburban school districts in Michigan.
Both served about 6,000 students and spent about $9,700 per student. In
each district, about 30 percent of students were economically
disadvantaged. But there were significant gaps in achievement between
the two districts measured over the same period of time. In one
district, around 80 percent of students were proficient in math. In the
other district, around 90 percent of students were proficient in that
subject.

Given the nature of our dataset, we were not able to identify how or
why this occurred, but it does make clear that some districts can do
more with the resources that they have.

Recommendations

Move away from rigid funding systems

In order to increase academic productivity, federal and state
policymakers should think more broadly about ways to give local leaders
more freedom to try new things. States should relax requirements that
lock up districts’ resources in ways that do not lead to improved
student performance.

Support districts more equitably

They cite California's "weighted student funding" but, as I previously reported, a lawsuit has been filed against the state for not funding schools properly (especially around the issue of teacher assignment).

Ensure districts spend money on what matters

- Be held accountable for spending instructional dollars productively

- Be transparent and make valuable financial information available to the public

Seems to me that if they could figure out *why* different schools achieved different results with the same funding, or more with less funding, they would be in a better place to make recommendations on what actually works Does one just pay less with a lower cost of living? Have newer schools so less (for now) maintenance? Or is one school actually investing less in say a smart board in each classroom (that rarely seem to actually get used, but providing more workbooks for elementary (vs haphazard worksheets), manipulatives vs having to wait for a turn, etc? I don't see how you can recommend changes to funding when you have no idea why similar schools are getting different results.

I'm reading this article, but it's hard to get through because it is really pissing me off.

First, it constantly refers to "productivity". That not only reflects a business-oriented perspective, but it's simply wrong. There is no productivity in schools because there is no product. Student outcomes are not a product. Test scores are not a product. Learning is not a product.

They could have just as easily (and more accurately) written about "student outcomes", or "test scores", or "academic achievement", but they didn't. They chose the word "productivity" and that tips me off about their perspective, costs them credibility, and pisses me off.

Second, there was this sentence:

"About 60 percent of districts’ budgets are committed to instructional costs, which are primarily educators’ salaries. That does not leave much room for district leaders to invest their financial resources in more productive ways."

What?!? When the goal is student learning, what more productive use of funds can there be other than instruction? Instruction is the work that gets the job done. There is no "more productive" work. The idea that these people think that instruction isn't particularly productive costs them all of the credibility they had left.

I didn't bother reading the report but the quote Charlie highlighted is hilarious!!!

Damn teachers.... Geeze, so much of the damn education budget goes to pay teachers. If it wasn't for that, heck, we could really get down to brass tacks and make that whole system hum! We could make it like a ferocious beast of learning!! We could be über-"productive".... If only we could get rid of those damn pesky teachers!!!!

I gotta wonder, what are they thinking? Have they ever stepped foot in a school? Have they ever seen a child, you know, up close? And in person? What exactly do they think is a more productive way of helping students learn by teaching them... with, you know ... teachers?

I am picturing "Clockwork Orange", where kids would go to school and sit sedated in a dentist chair with their eyelids pried open and Khan Academy blaring on huge plasma screens in front of their faces for 8 hours! Zero cost for teachers! Just shop at Best Buy for huge screens, and pay the tab for the electricity.

Maybe Hospitals could be more "productive" if we didn't have to pay so much of health care budget to doctors and nurses! What a waste!!

This priceless drivel gave me a great laugh. Thanks.

Maybe consultants' reports could be way more productive if they didn't have to spend so much damn money on those pesky consultants' salaries. Now, there's a thought.

Education Acroynms

Advanced Learning - SPS' three-tier program for advanced learners. Made up of APP, Spectrum and ALOs. (Note: the name of the district program is "Advanced Learning Services and Programs" but these three programs fall under "Highly Capable Services" of AL Services and Programs.

ALO - Advanced Learning Opportunity, the third tier of SPS' Advanced Learning program

AP - Advanced Placement. A national program of college-level classes given in high schools.

APP - Accelerated Progress Program. One of the levels of the Advanced Learning Program. NOTE: the name of this program is now "HIGHLY CAPABLE COHORT." This change occurred in 2014.

ASB - Associated Student Body. High school leadership groups.

AYP - Adequate Yearly Progress. Part of NCLB.

BEX - Building Excellence. SPS' capital renovation/rebuilding program that is funded via the BEX levy. Every 3 years there is the Operations levy and either the BEX or BTA levies as those two levies rotate in six year cycles).

BLT - Building Leadership Team. Staff members at a school who meet regularly to discuss building issues.

BTA - Buildings, Technology, Academics. The major maintenance/other capital fund for SPS. Originally BTA was to cover major maintenance like HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning), roofs, waterlines, etc.) but now covers wide swaths of items like athletic fields, technology and funding academic needs.

CAICEE - Community Advisory Committee for Investing in Educational Excellence. Created by former Superintendent Manhas in 2008, to issue a report about reform recommendations for SPS.

CSIP - Continuous School Improvement Plan, the plan for improvement for each school as required by state law.

EOC - End of Course Assessments, given in math and science, required for high school graduationESEA - Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the federal law that governs education, includes the NCLB accountability provisions.

e-STEM or e-STEAM - STEM or STEAM curriculum with an environmental focus.

FACMAC - Facilities and Capacity Management Advisory Committee. A district committee comprises of an all-volunteer citizen group created in 2012 to help bring research and ideas to capacity management issues in the district.

FERPA - Family Education Rights and Privacy Act. A federal law that protects students' privacy

FRL - Free and reduced lunch.

FTE - Full Time Equivalent

FY - Fiscal Year

Highly Capable Services - NEW name (as of 2014) as umbrella name for these programs: Highly Capable Cohort (formerly APP), Spectrum and ALO (Advanced Learning Opportunities).

HSPE - High School Proficiency Exam, state assessment that replaced the WASL for 10th graders, required for graduation

HQT - Highly Qualified Teacher, a standard set by federal law

IA - Instructional Assistant

IB - International Baccalaureate program. An international program of advanced classes that can either be taken as stand alone or as part of an overall IB program.

IDEA - Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The federal law that governs special education

MAP - Measures of Academic Progress. A computer-based adaptive assessment made by NWEA and originally purchased by the district for use as a district-wide formative assessment but now used for a wide variety of purposes.

MSP - Measurement of Student Progress, the state proficiency assessment that replaced the WASL for students in grades 1-8

MTSS - Multi-Tiered Systems of Support

NCLB - No Child Left Behind, a provision of the federal education law, ESEA, introduced during the George W. Bush administration